Would you, as a professor, like to develop a new structured doctoral degree program together with your colleagues?

Should it be a program offered by your Department or School at a structured level with ideal support?

Or are you planning to apply for financing for a research training group, for example from an external funding provider?

Support with developing programs and making applications

The FAU Graduate Center is happy to help you in your projects, giving advice on topics such as encouraging new talent, supervising students or drawing up the curriculum.

The sooner you get in touch with us, the more individual support we can give you for your planned project.

In the case of applications for external funding, the Graduate Center can also assist you in preparing for the relevant evaluations. Over the years, we have gathered experience in DFG evaluations for research training groups or integrated research training groups with CRCs/TRRs and are happy to use this experience to help you.

If you are applying for third party funding for your project, H3 (Office of Third-party Funding and Related Legal Affairs in Research) can give you support.

Criteria for a structured doctoral program

Doctoral programs that are set up at FAU must fulfill the following criteria, irrespective of funding:

• Clear distinction in terms of subject matter and topic of the program as well as a sufficient number of researchers taking part (“critical mass”)
• Consideration of aspects relating to gender and diversity
• Concept for supervision with supervision agreement, teams of supervisors and regular status reports/feedback meetings
• Qualification concept with obligatory subject-related and interdisciplinary events for young researchers Regular exchange of ideas within the program and with national and international specialist audiences
• Clearly-defined application process (principle of multiple assessors)
• Defined time period for completion of doctoral degree with defined options for extension
• Clearly-defined organizational structures and processes (governance)

You usually automatically fulfill these criteria if you apply for a doctoral program with an external funding provider (e.g. research training groups from DFG).

Use of the event program and event planning offered by the Graduate Center for structured doctoral programs

The Graduate Center event program can be integrated into your doctoral program. The curriculum of a doctoral program usually includes a number of seminars and workshops on interdisciplinary topics that can be selected (for instance academic writing, designing poster presentations, project management, scientific communication) and for professional development in soft skills (for instance small talk at conferences, time management, staff management). Doctoral candidates can take part in these courses and they can usually be accredited to the degree program.

We would be happy to assist you with developing events that are tailored towards your program. Again: The sooner you get in touch with us, the more we can tailor what’s on offer to suit your individual needs so that you can include them in your application and in your program.